Page 582 – Nejat Society

MKO Ringleaders Readying to Open Fight with Iraqi Forces

The ringleaders of the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization are preparing a plan to use dissident members of the group for an upcoming assault on the Iraqi forces guarding the MKO’s main camp in Northern Iraq, a rights group revealed on Sunday. MKO Ringleaders Readying to Open Fight with Iraqi Forces

According to a report published by the website of the Habilian association – a human rights group formed of the family members and relatives of the Iranian victims of terrorism – the ringleaders of the MKO had earlier threatened to massacre all the group members if the Iraqi government embarks on expelling the terrorist group from the country.

The report said that the MKO leaders have worked out plans to send dissident members to the frontline of any future conflict with the Iraqi forces in a bid to get them killed to get rid of them.

According to the rights group, the MKO gang leaders have prepared plans to coax a number of members into escaping from the camp to shoot them from behind and also persuade dozens of others to carry out self-immolation – by using fuel bottles which have already been prepared – and commit suicide in front of TV cameras.

Also, a defected member of the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization had earlier unveiled that MKO ringleaders are using every means within their reach to control their dissident members, including life threats, in a move to keep the members in the group’s main stronghold in Northern Iraq.

"Massoud Rajavi (the main ringleader of the MKO) has announced many times that if anybody wants to escape from (the camp) Ashraf (in Iraq), he/she will be killed or executed," Abdollatif Chahardari [Shadvari]said.

He reiterated that the ringleaders of the MKO also prevent the members who are residing in Camp Ashraf from taking refuge in other countries, saying, "Ashraf is the only place you have."

Also in March, another defected member of the MKO revealed that the female members of the group have been living under captivity for more than 25 years and are not even allowed to appear in public places alone.

"It can be firmly said that 95% of the women in Ashraf Camp (the terrorist group’s resort in Iraq) have not even been allowed to step in Iraq’s public and recreational places alone all throughout the last 25 years," the defected member said.

The former member of the MKO also revealed that nearly 70% of the female members of the terrorist group are single and have not been allowed to marry anyone in or outside the group.

And only a total 10% of the married members have been allowed to have children, he added.

The MKO has been in Iraq’s Diyala province since the 1980s.

Iraqi security forces took control of the training base of the MKO at Camp Ashraf – about 60km (37 miles) north of Baghdad – in 2009 and detained dozens of the members of the terrorist group.

The Iraqi authority also changed the name of the military center from Camp Ashraf to the Camp of New Iraq.

Many of the MKO members abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.

A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.

Numerous articles and letters posted on the Internet by family members of MKO recruits confirm reports of the horrific abuse that the group inflicts on its own members and the alluring recruitment methods it uses.

The most shocking of such stories includes accounts given by former British MKO member Ann Singleton and Mustafa Mohammadi – the father of an Iranian-Canadian girl who was drawn into the group during an MKO recruitment campaign in Canada.

Mohammadi recounts his desperate efforts to contact his daughter, who disappeared several years ago – a result of what the MKO called a ‘two-month tour’ of Camp Ashraf for teenagers.

He also explains how the group forces the families of its recruits to take part in pro-MKO demonstrations in Western countries by threatening to kill their loved ones.

Lacking a foothold in Iran, the terrorist group recruits ill-informed teens from Iranian immigrant communities in Western states and blocks their departure afterwards.

The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.

Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.

August 1, 2011 0 comments

Iraq

Iraq to sue states supporting MKO

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has announced that his country will sue the governments supporting the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group. Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki

"Iraq will sue those governments that support the MKO in order to harm Baghdad," Maliki said at a Saturday press conference, Al-Alam news network reported.

"The Western states put the MKO on the list of terrorist groups for its crimes against Iraqi people, but they support it now," he noted.

Maliki was referring to a recent decision by a Spanish court to summon the Iraqi premier regarding the incidents in Camp Ashraf — where the MKO terrorists are currently located — in April.

The Iraqi prime minister also said that Iraq does not recognize the Spanish court’s order.

The MKO fled to Iraq in the 1980s, where it enjoyed the support of executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and set up Camp Ashraf in the eastern province of Diyala, near the Iranian border.

The terrorist group cooperated with Saddam in the massacres of Iraqi Kurds and in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community and has committed numerous terrorist acts against both Iranians and Iraqis.

July 31, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Mujahedin supporters mount U.S. lobbying effort

Iranian American groups have launched an expensive campaign to have the People’s Mujahedin Organization removed from the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

Two groups have hired Washington lobbyists to push a House bill calling for the change.

The Iranian American Community of Northern California has paid Akin Gump $100,000 in the past two months. Former congressmen Vic Fazio and Bill Paxon are among the Akin Gump advisers working on the campaign.

Another group, Iranian-American Community of North Texas, hired diGenova & Toensing in February. The lobby shop has been paid $100,000 this year.

Mujahedin supporters mount U.S. lobbying effort

The State Department describes Mujahedin, also known as Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), as “the largest and most active armed Iranian dissident group,” with a history of anti-western activity.

The House bill, sponsored by Republican Ted Poe of Texas, argues that members of the organization have ceased all military operations and reject terrorism.

The Financial Times reports that groups supporting the legislation have paid millions of dollars to former government officials to speak at their events.

Among those speaking on behalf of the groups, according to the FT, are Howard Dean, Rudy Giuliani, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton; former national security adviser Jim Jones; retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge; former congressman Lee Hamilton; and former Attorney Gen. Michael Mukasey.

By Laurie Bennett – Muckety.com

July 31, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO pays US figures to get off blacklist

Former US Rep. Lee Hamilton calls for the removal of the MKO from the US blacklist at a conference in Washington, on February 19, 2011. The anti-Iran terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) is reportedly paying tens of thousands of dollars to US heavyweights to advocate the group’s removal from the US list of foreign terrorist groups.

In a surprisingly well-funded lobbying campaign, dozens of former political officials have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak at events organized by supporters of the terrorist organization in the US, The Financial Times reported Friday.

The individuals include John Bolton, George W. Bush’s ambassador to the UN; Howard Dean, former Democratic National Committee chairman; Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor; Jim Jones, President Barack Obama’s first national security adviser; Wesley Clark, retired army general, and Tom Ridge, the first Homeland Security Secretary, the report added.

Lee Hamilton, former Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, and Michael Mukasey, Attorney-General for the last Bush administration, both revealed that they had been paid for speaking at such events.

General Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Clinton administration, also confirmed he was paid, along with other officials, including Louis Freeh, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and General James Conway, the former Marine Corps commandant, to speak at an MKO-linked conference in Washington.

Several people familiar with MKO’s offers said that the pay scale ranged from $20,000 to $100,000 per speech, plus travel expenses.

Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor, said he received $20,000 for an 11-minute speech while a former US official said he was offered $30,000 plus first-class air fare to show up at an MKO-linked event in Europe.

The group has also hired Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, a lobbying firm, to persuade members of US Congress to support the terrorist organization’s objectives. Several $100,000-plus newspaper advertisements had been taken out, FT added.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community and is responsible for numerous acts of terror and violence against Iranian civilians and government officials.

The United States designated the MKO a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.

The group has appealed to be taken off the list, claiming that it renounced terrorism in 2001. This is while the group has been confirmed to be involved in or behind several terrorist attacks against Iranian citizens since then.

The US Department of State is due to make a ruling on the status of the group next month.
PressTV – Sat Jul 30, 2011
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/191469.html

July 31, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

West and MKO: a murderous alliance

Despite their boastful claims of being opposed to terrorism, the United States and its European cronies have long been the staunch supporters of criminal organizations such as MKO which has brutally slaughtered hundreds of Iranians during the 8-year war with Iraq and introduced itself as a murderous terrorist entity and the number one enemy of the Iranian nation.

Ironically, the United States that launched a self-proclaimed War on Terror following the 9/11 attacks under the pretext of combating terrorism and eradicating fundamentalism and extremism in the world has been a safe haven for the members of Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization which has been responsible for the killing of hundreds of innocent civilians during its years of existence.

The overt and ostentatious relationship of MKO with the United States and European countries, especially over the recent years has been always a source of disappointment and regret for the Iranian people and the families of the victims of MKO terror attacks in the 1980s.

The West’s financial and political support for MKO has been frequently protested and condemned by the Iranian officials and even conscious, independent Western thinkers who are aware of the nature of MKO’s brutal and atrocious activities; however, the US and its EU friends have never heeded these calls and prolonged their support for MKO and other anti-Iran terrorist organizations such as PJAK and Jundallah.

To the utmost surprise of Iran and the international community, the European Parliament removed MKO’s name from its blacklist of terrorist organizations in 2009 and subsequently asked the US Congress to do the same and take MKO off its list. An article published by The Financial Times reported on Friday that MKO has been lobbying and paying dozens of former political officials to achieve this goal.

Since 2009, frequent efforts have been made in the US by the pro-Israeli lobbies and anti-Iranian activists and congressmen to remove MKO from the list of terrorist organizations, thus facilitating the enhancement of ties with this criminal gang.

In 2008 and during the final days of the George W. Bush administration, the high-ranking officials of the MKO launched a campaign to persuade the US government to remove their name from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The US government rejected the request after investigating the materials and documents submitted by the MKO; however, in July of the same year, a US federal appeals court ordered the US Department of State to reconsider its decision. The State Department announced that it would consider the chances of taking MKO off the list of terrorist organizations; however, it further added that it continues to consider MKO as a terrorist organization.

However, at a conference in Washington on February 20 that was organized by a group called Executive Action, several American officials urged President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to remove the MKO from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Lee H. Hamilton, a member of the US Homeland Security Advisory Council who had once chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee and served as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Ambassador at Large Dell L. Dailey who was the head of the State Department’s counterterrorism office from July 2007 to April 2009, General Michael Hayden, a former CIA director, Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Walter B. Slocombe were among the officials who attended the conference and supported the calls for the removal of MKO’s name from the list of terrorist organizations.

MKO hopes to build up pressure on the Iranian nation with the unconditional support of the United States and Europe and destabilize the government by carrying out terrorist activities, assassinating politicians and scientists and funding anti-Iranian NGOs. Over the recent years, MKO claimed responsibility for the killing of a number of IRGC commanders and soldiers, Iranian nuclear scientists and politicians. This clearly demonstrates that MKO is an all-out terrorist organization, but it’s actively and furtively lobbying to gain recognition as a legitimate opposition group.

According to a report titled "The Foolish Embrace of the MEK (another label for the MKO)" written by Daniel Larison and published by The American Conservative magazine, since early January 2011, the MKO has spent millions of dollars on lobbyists, Public Relations agents and communications firms to build up pressure on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take the group off the terrorist list, alleging that the MKO has rejected violence and terrorism in 2001 and as a result should be de-listed.

The report unveiled that many high-ranking of the Bush and Obama administration are "bizarrely" enthusiastic to embrace MKO and support it, because this terrorist organization is opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran and wants to derail its security and stability.

It’s also said that MKO maintains close ties with the Israeli regime. The members of MKO regularly attend AIPAC meetings. In fact, the MKO has intensive and very direct cooperation with the Iran Policy Committee, a subordinate of AIPAC. In a 2009 article published by Asia Times, it was unveiled that there are regular media reports which allude to direct Israel-MKO ties.

However, the previously secret ties of MKO with the West and Israel have become publicly known and everybody knows that this terrorist organization is being funded, supported and backed by the West and Israel.

The West’s support for MKO and other anti-Iran terrorist organizations is a clear exercise of double standards by those who call themselves the pioneers of human rights and supporters of global peace. With their blatant and flagrant support of MKO, the Western states demonstrate the futility of their claims and the duplicity of their policies and actions.

By Kourosh Ziabari

July 31, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Filner’s Road to Paris

Bob Filner took a first-class trip to Paris, courtesy of an Iranian-American group with ties to alleged terrorists .

Democratic Congressman Bob Filner, who has declared his candidacy for mayor of San Diego, took a free trip to Paris last month courtesy of a group of Iranian-Americans from Colorado tied to a controversial organization on the U.S. State Department’s roster of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”

According to Filner’s disclosure report, dated July 5 and posted by the website Legistorm.com, the congressman departed Washington, D.C. on June 16 and returned June 21. His activities in the French capital included a “Grand meeting of Iranians in support of human rights and democracy for Iran.” The document adds that the congressman also “met with women’s right and religious right leaders.”

Total transportation expenses, including first class commercial airfare, were given as $4203.77. Total lodging expenses were said to be $2385.85. No separate meal or drink costs were listed. In response to a section of the form that reads, “Explain why participation in the trip is connected to your individual official or representational duties,” the disclosure reads, “Advocate Iranian Human Rights.” An accompanying “Private Sponsor Travel Certification Form” was signed by Tim Mehdi Ghaemi of “Colorado’s Iranian American Community.”

Back in November 2007, we wrote about a similar trip Filner made to Paris in June of that year, paid for by the same sponsor. Ghaemi told us then that the funds for the $7949 trip came from “Iranian-American community members in Colorado” but would not identify individual donors. Filner didn’t return calls for that story.

Ghaemi has ties to the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK), which has long been fighting to get the U.S. to stop calling it a terrorist organization. Begun as a 1960s left-wing group opposed to the Shah of Iran, the organization turned against the Islamic revolution that succeeded the Shah, waging a deadly bombing campaign inside that country and allying itself with president Saddam Hussein of Iraq, where the group based attacks against Iran during the Iraq-Iran war.

Since the fall of Saddam, the group’s political allies in the U.S., many of whom are members of the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, have argued that, as an opponent of Iran, the MEK should be removed from the American terrorist list. Critics, on the other hand, claim that the group remains a threat to international order. Some have called it a cult that conducts “ideological cleansings” of its members. First designated a terrorist organization in 1997 during the Clinton Administration, the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization has remained on the list ever since, including during the administration of George W. Bush.

A major MEK advocate has been ex-House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a one-time lobbyist with the law and lobbying firm of DLA Piper in Washington. In January 2008, the National Journal reported Armey had written op-eds and other material on MEK’s behalf. According to that story, “DLA Piper has received $860,000 in fees over the past four and a half years from Saeid Ghaemi, whom the firm identifies as an ‘Iranian-American businessman who works closely with the Iranian-American community in the U.S. to promote human rights and democracy in Iran.’” The publication identified Tim Mehdi Ghaemi as Saeid Ghaemi’s brother.

In 2007, Filner teamed up with Colorado conservative GOP House member Tom Tancredo to coauthor an op-ed piece for the Washington Times: “From its base in Iraq, where 3800 MEK members live under the protection of coalition forces, the organization has provided intelligence on Iran’s support for terrorism in Iraq,” the pair wrote. “Listing the MEK as ‘terrorists’ is both an injustice and manifestly contrary to U.S. interests.”

In January of this year, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, ex-Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge, and ex-Bush homeland security advisor Frances Fragos Townsend took up the cause in the National Review: “MEK, which opposes the current regime in Tehran and has provided valuable intelligence to the United States on Iranian nuclear plans, was placed on the State Department list during the Clinton administration as a purported goodwill gesture to the mullahs, in aid of furthering dialogue. Regrettably, it was kept on during the administration of George W. Bush, in part out of fear that Iran would provide IEDs to our enemies in Iraq, which of course the mullahs are doing anyway.”

Three weeks ago, following his latest trip to Paris as a guest of the Iranian-Americans, Filner reiterated to the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations — chaired by California GOP congressman Dana Rohrabacher — that the MEK should be removed from the terrorist list.

“The MEK and its leader have come up with, it seems to me, the one legitimate policy that is best for us as Americans,” Filner said. “They call it the ‘third way.’ That means we do not invade Iran, but we do not appease the existing mullahs. We get out of the way and let the resistance do what it — what it can and should and wants to do. The listing of the — of the MEK as a terrorist organization is getting in the way, so we ought to delist.”

Filner did not respond to a telephone message left with an aide at his congressional office in Washington.

By Matt Potter – Sandiego Reader

July 30, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

More Talks to Remove MEK from Terror List

In yet another attempt at destabilizing Iran, Hillary Clinton will soon announce a decision by US State Department on whether or not to remove Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), or “the people’s holy warriors,” from its terrorism registry. Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), cautioned that doing so “would allow the Mujahedin to receive US funding and become a powerful force in support of war with Iran, just like the Iraqi exiles who deceived us into war with Iraq did.”

In an age where the word terrorism or bomb is enough to get you arrested and thrown out of the airport, why are American officials and policy wonks pressing for the removal of MEK from terror watch list? They, just like the Taliban and the Contras, are valuable pawns, or so they think, in the quest for American dominance of the Middle East. MEK is so highly valued by the war-with-Iran crowd because they were the group that “revealed” the Natanz nuclear site and brought to light documents concerning the Iranian nuclear program in 2002. As Gareth Porter argued, the documents provided by MEK and their political extension, the National Council of Resistance in Iran, were fabricated:

The German source said he did not know whether the documents were authentic or not. However, CIA analysts, and European and IAEA officials who were given access to the laptop documents in 2005 were very sceptical about their authenticity.
The Guardian’s Julian Borger last February quoted an IAEA official as saying there is “doubt over the provenance of the computer”.
A senior European diplomat who had examined the documents was quoted by the New York Times in November 2005 as saying, “I can fabricate that data. It looks beautiful, but is open to doubt.”
Scott Ritter, the former U.S. military intelligence officer who was chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, noted in an interview that the CIA has the capability test the authenticity of laptop documents through forensic tests that would reveal when different versions of different documents were created.
The fact that the agency could not rule out the possibility of fabrication, according to Ritter, indicates that it had either chosen not to do such tests or that the tests had revealed fraud.

Additionally, MEK’s “discovery” of the Natanz site was doubted by many keen observers of Iranian politics who noted the groups friendly relationship with Israel, as well as their lack of key posts in government positions that would have made any relevant information hard to come by.

Since 2002, new information has emerged indicating that the MEK did not obtain the 2002 data on Natanz itself but received it from the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Yossi Melman and Meier Javadanfar, who co-authored a book on the Iranian nuclear programme last year, write that they were told by “very senior Israeli Intelligence officials” in late 2006 that Israeli intelligence had known about Natanz for a full year before the Iranian group’s press conference. They explained that they had chosen not to reveal it to the public “because of safety concerns for the sources that provided the information”.
…
Israel has maintained a relationship with the MEK since the late 1990s, according to Bruck, including assistance to the organisation in beaming broadcasts by the NCRI from Paris into Iran. An Israeli diplomat confirmed that Israel had found the MEK “useful”, Bruck reported, but the official declined to elaborate.

Not only can MEK not be trusted as an objective source of information, but the violence carried out against Americans in the past by this terrorist group should give great pause to anyone, especially members of government, considering supporting this group. Additionally, the bipolar nature of American-MEK relations, from the worst of enemies to best of friends and back again, gives absolutely zero assurance that this group would be conducive to American interests even in the near future.

While the War Party is hoping that MEK will be a valuable propaganda tool in initiating an attack on Iran, they ought not fool themselves into thinking that MEK will bring about regime change nternally. Universally hated in Iran for siding with Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war, Iranians have little tolerance for this troublemaking group.

It’s best the US just stayed out of the whole brouhaha.

Brian Beyer

July 30, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Iranian exiles pay US figures as advocates

Luminaries lobby for ‘Washington’s favourite terrorists’ to be removed from a list of foreign terrorist organisations

An Iranian exile group is spending millions of dollars in a lobbying effort to be removed from the US’s list of foreign terrorist organisations, recruiting a group of US national security luminaries to be its advocates.

Dozens of former officials across the political spectrum – from conservative John Bolton to liberal Howard Dean – have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak at events organised by supporters of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or People’s Mujahedin, in the US, the Financial Times has learnt.

Washington designated the MEK, a Marxist-Islamist group that supported the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, as a terrorist organisation in 1997. But the group says it renounced terrorism in 2001 and has appealed to be taken off the list, which also includes al-Qaeda and Hizbollah. It fell out with Iran’s Islamic government after the 1979 revolution.

The group has also hired Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a lobbying firm, to persuade members of Congress to support its cause and has taken out several $100,000-plus newspaper advertisements. The Department of State is due to make a ruling next month.

To help advance its cause, groups linked to the MEK have recruited more than 40 former officials to speak on their behalf. They include Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor; Jim Jones, President Barack Obama’s first national security adviser; Wesley Clark, the retired army general; and Tom Ridge, the first homeland security secretary.

One Iran analyst, Trita Parsi, has dubbed the group “Washington’s favourite terrorists”.

Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic chairman of the House foreign relations committee, and Michael Mukasey, attorney-general in the last Bush administration, both told the FT they were paid for speaking at MEK-linked events.

Mr Bolton, George W. Bush’s ambassador to the UN, said he did not see the fact he was being paid “as an issue”, while Mr Dean, the former Democratic national committee chairman, dismissed the question as a “sideshow”.

None would disclose how much they had been paid but Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor, said he received $20,000 for an 11-minute speech. “But even if I was paid $50,000, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t believe in it,” he said.

A former US official said he was offered $30,000 and first class air fares to appear at an MEK-linked event in Europe. Several people familiar with the MEK’s offers described a sliding pay scale of $20,000 to $100,000 per speech, plus travel costs, and that four-speech packages were common. Ahmad Moein, executive director of the Iranian American Community of Northern California, one of the groups behind the lobbying effort, said the figures were “greatly exaggerated”.

By Anna Fifield in Washington

July 30, 2011 0 comments

Iraq

Iraq says not to allow PJAK, MKO to act

Iraqi ambassador to Iran Majid al-Sheikh said his country would not allow PJAK and MKO to act inside the Arab country.
"Iraq is resolute not to allow Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) members to stay inside its territory. Situation would be very hard for them (the group members) to stay inside Iraqi soil after upcoming withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq," he told ISNA.

"Iraq will never allow any terrorist cell to act against its neighboring states," the Iraqi top diplomat added.

As to press reports on giving lands of Iraqi Kurdistan region to PJAK terrorist network, the ambassador noted, "no terrorist group including PJAK and MKO is permitted to act against neighboring states based on Iraqi Constitution."

Regarding American forces’ exit from Iraq, he said, "the issue will be decided upon in phases. People in Iraq do not want that outsiders remain inside Iraq."

"Iraqi nation and establishment do not want existence of any organization inside its soil which uses the country for operations against neighboring states, particularly against Iran."

"Iraqi government preferred the issued (expulsion of MKO from Iraq) be settled through a trilateral committee by Iran, Iraq and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). We had called for the EU to host these people and distribute them in different states. The group has no position inside Iraq."

As to Iran-Iraq shared borders and marking land borders, the Iraqi diplomat said, "land borders’ marking will be accomplished by next year, as experts believe."

Meanwhile concerning shared oil pools, he said, "the two countries (Iran and Iraq) have agreed not to use joint oil pools as long as the issue of shared borders has remained unsettled."

As to delay in transfer of Iran’s gas to Europe through Iraq, Syria and Turkey, he said, "a meeting scheduled to discuss the issue was cancelled due to some problems of other countries."

July 28, 2011 0 comments

USA

Investigate the case of lobbyists for MEK terror group in Washington

Congressman Kucinich to Attorney General Eric Hoder:
Investigate the case of lobbyists for MEK terror group in Washington

Kucinich Asks Tough Questions About FBI Investigation of Anti-War Groups
“Is it Good Judgment to Direct the Overwhelming Resources of the Federal Government onto Small, Local Groups and Individuals whose Primary Interest is Peace
Washington, Jul 25 – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder asking tough questions about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s large commitment of resources to investigate small, local groups of individuals whose primary concern is peace. Congressman Kucinich also asked for an explanation for the apparent differential use of vague and broad criminal statutes.

“A federal prosecutor has tremendous power and resources,” wrote Kucinich. “Because of that, he has a concomitant obligation to exercise that power with judgment and discretion. Is it good judgment to direct the overwhelming resources of the federal government onto small, local groups and individuals whose primary interest is peace? Is it good judgment to investigate them under a vague and broad statute whose text and interpretations have changed numerous times over the past decade? Is this really the best use of Department of Justice personnel?”

See a signed copy of the letter here.

part of the Document:… The Washington Post and other news sources have reported that fromer Attorny General Michael Mukasy, former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, former Whaite House security adviser Frances Townsend, and former New York Mayor Tudy Giuliani have publicly expressed their support for the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK), and organization that has been on the foreign terrorist list of the State Department since 1997… It has been reported that the MEK has spent millions of dollars on lobbyists, PR agents an communications firms to build up pressure on Secretary Hillary Clinton to take the group off the terrorist list. In Horder, the Department of Justice, under both your direction and that of Attorny General Mukasey, argued that it was felony to file an amicus brief on behalf of a foreign terrorist organization, or to engage in public advocacy on behalf of such an organization, unless that advocacy was totally”independent”of the organization. How do you reconcile those arguments with the total absence of attention paid to lobbying activities in support of the MEK? how do you reconcile that inaction with the apparent overkill that has been directed at the anti-war activists in Mineapolis and Chicago? …

Link to the full document:

Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich/ kucinich.house.gov

July 27, 2011 0 comments

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